


You May Contribute a Verse

by satb31



Series: 1,000 Follower Giveaway Fics [5]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad Poetry, Dead Poets Society - Freeform, Fluff and Angst, High School, M/M, Poetry, Teen Angst, prep school angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 05:15:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1292752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satb31/pseuds/satb31
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire and Enjolras are roommates at prep school. Grantaire has feelings for Enjolras that he finally expresses through a poetry assignment in English class. Loosely based on Dead Poets Society.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You May Contribute a Verse

**Author's Note:**

> For tumblr user unmarkedindeath, based on the following prompt: "My prompt is Modern AU with unrequited feelings with Grantaire and Enjolras and R finally having the nerve to confront E about how he feels."
> 
> The title and the quotes come from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.

Grantaire never wanted to go to prep school.

If the decision had been his to make, he would have been spending his senior year at the public school in his hometown, coasting through his classes en route to his predetermined slot at the same little Ivy his father had gone to. But when his parents discovered him drunk three different times on the gin he’d filched from their unlocked liquor cabinet — the third time while lying naked in bed with his best friend — their solution was to ship him away for his final year, hoping that the strict discipline of the headmasters would make up for 17 years of no discipline at all.

And Grantaire was unhappy.

It wasn’t the academics that bothered him — he was one of those students who could get away with not studying all semester and still walk away with a good grade on the final. And it wasn’t even the rules that bothered him — he had managed to charm a day student named Montparnasse to supply him with alcohol of different varieties that he kept in a flask in his room. But at his new school, his longish hair and his self-deprecating humor made him an outcast among the rest of the boys, who oozed conformity and self-satisfaction from every pore. So for the most part he spent his time alone, sketching idly in notebooks and biding his time until graduation and college.

The one bright spot in prep school life was Enjolras.

Grantaire didn’t know quite what to make of Enjolras when they were assigned to be roommates in September. At first glance, Enjolras appeared to be a god among gods at the school, the one every boy wanted to be. He was handsome and blond and charming — a good student, a decent athlete, well-liked by his peers. Grantaire’s first instinct was to dismiss him as yet another pretty boy whose future success was guaranteed by the circumstances of his birth into a prominent family.

Yet Enjolras possessed a sharp tongue that he deployed many times in defense of someone who was being bullied or when the administration was being arbitrarily harsh. And rather than spending his free time with the most popular jocks, he chose to hang around the common room with his two best friends, the brainy Combeferre and the effusive Courfeyrac, drinking lots of foul-tasting coffee and debating politics and philosophy and every other topic under the sun with them.

As the three friends talked, Grantaire would watch from the corner of the room, sipping surreptitiously on his flask, but only rarely joining in the conversation. He loved to listen to Enjolras speak — to hear him raise his voice when he was making a point, or to hear him lower it in anger when necessary. His face would get flushed and his pupils would dilate and he would lick his lips as he prepared to make a point.

And Grantaire couldn’t take his eyes off of him.

When they were alone in their room after lights out, Grantaire felt more comfortable speaking his mind, telling Enjolras about his distant parents or how he would dearly love to pursue art as a career, but how he knew his family would never approve. Enjolras would speak about his own family, and how his own leftist politics and his sexual orientation were putting him at odds with their country club Republicanism.

Grantaire loved those nights in their room, loved those times when he was the focus of Enjolras’s attention. And when Enjolras finally dozed off, Grantaire would turn over on his stomach and close his eyes, listening to Enjolras’s steady breathing and imagining what it would be like if they were together.

But in the harsh light of morning, Grantaire knew it could never happen.

**  
Grantaire and Enjolras only had one class together: AP English. Mr. Lamarque was an eccentric, the kind of teacher who tossed out the textbook and instead discussed current events and encouraged them to share their dreams and their fears. The likelihood that any of them would pass the AP exam after this class was slim to none, but Lamarque was popular with the students, even as the school administration frowned on his methods. In class Enjolras spoke often, parrying with the teacher and his fellow students, but Grantaire continued to be reticent, preferring to slump in his chair, making an occasional snide remark that only those sitting right near him would hear.

Two weeks before Christmas, they received their most challenging assignment to date: to write and recite an original poem. The assignment was met with moans and groans from the entire class, and Grantaire rolled his eyes.

“Write about something you love, that you live for,” Lamarque implored them. “‘The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse,’” he quoted, looking directly at Grantaire as he spoke.

Grantaire swallowed hard and stared straight ahead.

Over the next week, he tried everything. He tried to write witty poems about booze, or abstract poems about painting — two things he loved — but he just couldn’t make it work. He filled dozens of notebook pages with poems — and ended up balling them up and throwing them in the trash can.

“How is the poetry writing going?” Enjolras asked him casually the night before it was due.

“Oh fine,” Grantaire said breezily. “How about you?” he asked, secretly hoping he was struggling too.

“Finished,” Enjolras replied, smiling proudly. “A sonnet on revolution and freedom. I think I even got the iambic pentameter right,” he said, confident he had aced the assignment.

Grantaire laughed nervously. Of course Enjolras would write a perfect sonnet, on a topic he was passionate about.

And of course Grantaire still had nothing.

Later that night, after Enjolras had gone to sleep, Grantaire found himself looking over at his roommate, lying on his back with his golden curls spread out over his pillow, his pale face reflecting in the moonlight streaming in their dormitory window. He ached to slip out of his own bed and into Enjolras’s, to kiss him and touch him and hear him wail with desire.

But he knew he couldn’t.

And armed with that knowledge, he padded over to the desk, pulled out his notebook, and began to scribble.

**  
Grantaire had gone to sleep the previous night content with what he had written — but in the morning the poem seemed ridiculous and sentimental. But he awakened too late to rewrite it, and he couldn’t afford to get an F on the assignment — after all, he knew what his parents were shelling out for his tuition, and he desperately didn’t want to flunk out and have to start all over at a third school — so he slipped the notebook paper into his folder, poured some of his purloined gin into his orange juice, and headed off to class.

Grantaire slid into his chair just as class was starting, wishing he’d been able to down more alcohol and willing the clock to move so quickly that they would have to go off to math class before he had to get up. Courfeyrac was the first to volunteer to read his, reading a Chaucer-like ballad about various fictional loves that left the class in stitches. Enjolras read his sonnet, which was meticulously executed and obviously impressed Lamarque. And Combeferre recited a lengthy ode on a moth he’d seen fluttering in a lampshade in the common room that took a good 10 minutes for him to read.

Grantaire glanced at the clock as Combeferre took his seat. Three minutes left. Maybe he would escape.

“Grantaire?” Lamarque said, stopping in front of his desk. “You’re up. Last one for today — we’ll get the rest of you jokers tomorrow,” he said, glaring at his charges.

Grantaire rose to his feet, his knees wobbly both from the liquor and his nerves, and walked to the front of the classroom. He looked around at his classmates, and then at Lamarque, who nodded his encouragement, and began to recite the poem — which he knew by heart.

Grantaire cringed hearing his voice say the words. He knew he was no Whitman. About halfway through, he heard a snicker come from somewhere in the direction of Courfeyrac.

Grantaire’s face reddened as he spoke the last stanza, not daring to look at Enjolras.

_Permit me to love you forever_   
_Worship your body_   
_Inhabit your soul_   
_And die by your side_

The classroom was dead silent as he finished. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Combeferre watching him solemnly and knowingly.

And Grantaire knew then that they all knew exactly who he had written about.

Lamarque came over and patted him on the shoulder. “Thank you, Grantaire,” he said quietly. “For speaking from your heart so clearly. And we’ll hear from the rest of you lovelies tomorrow,” he said waving his arms.

The class adjourned noisily, heading off to their next class.

And Grantaire fled.

**  
Large wet snowflakes were falling all around Grantaire as he sat shivering on a bench in the quad. He didn’t dare show his face in the dorm, knowing the boys would mock him and his poem, although he knew he’d have to go back and face them eventually.

And face Enjolras.

Grantaire cursed himself, digging his fingernails into his palms. He should have finished the poem about painting — he could have made it work somehow, even if the words were flat and emotionless. Or he could have written something witty like Courfeyrac did, a parody of some long-dead writer that would make the class laugh at his cleverness. Or—

“Hey,” came a familiar voice.

Enjolras was standing in front of him, bundled up in a black pea coat, a red scarf wrapped around his neck and snow clinging to his blond hair.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he continued, taking a seat next to him. “Combeferre told me you weren’t in math or history this morning, and I didn’t see you at lunch—” He trailed off awkwardly. “Grantaire, I—”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Grantaire blurted. “About the poem, everything. I didn’t mean to do it. I just—I didn’t know what to write, and I couldn’t sleep last night, and I was watching you sleep, and—” Grantaire hesitated, looking away. “And I know you don’t feel the same way, and you never will, and that’s fine, because I have no idea why someone like you would ever want to be with someone like me anyway.” He blinked hard, his eyes stinging both from the snow and his own tears.

Enjolras took his hand in his. “I had no idea,” he said quietly.

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Grantaire said simply. “Why would you? You’re a god around here. And I’m just a lowly asshole with an attitude who can’t write poetry for shit.”

Enjolras was silent for a moment, still clutching Grantaire’s hand, his head bowed. “Lamarque always talks about life as a powerful play, and how we all need to contribute a verse. And I always thought my contribution would be in politics or activism somehow,” he explained, looking off into the distance. “But maybe my verse is something else,” he said, turning to look directly into Grantaire’s eyes.

Grantaire stared back at him, his heart thundering in his chest, wondering if he had imagined him uttering that last line.

But Enjolras squeezed his hand tightly, bowing his head before him.

And maybe, Grantaire thought, that verse would be written together.


End file.
